


The Golden Age

by TourmalineGreen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Banter, Ben the jaded actor and former child star, Celebrity AU, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fake Dating, Golden Age Hollywood, Rey the vivacious newcomer, SO MUCH BANTER, Slap Slap Kiss, Sort Of, Vomit Mention, alcohol mention, they fight crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-08-29 02:39:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16735500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineGreen/pseuds/TourmalineGreen
Summary: Hollywood, 1953.After the press catches wind of yet another crashed car and yet another drunken night on the town, actor Ben Solo has to face facts: his bad-boy image is in need of a serious fix. Pairing him off with a wholesome, up-and-coming actress girlfriend seems like it might just do the trick. They can walk red carpets together, sell the whole relationship thing. And he can get his career back on track. Which is what he wants. Isn't it?Rey Jackson is nothing that he expects, and everything he finds himself wanting. But she's on her way up, a star in the making, and he's... self-destructive, on a good day. Weary of the business, and tired of being who he is. What they have is fake; there's no illusions that it's more than what it is. But what else is the magic of cinema for, if not to allow yourself the chance to dream?OR: here, have a a Golden Age of Hollywood Reylo fake dating AU!





	The Golden Age

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sokki09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sokki09/gifts).



> Monumental thanks to [voicedimplosives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives/pseuds/voicedimplosives), [destinies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinies/pseuds/destinies), and [oscillateswildly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oscillateswildly/pseuds/oscillateswildly) for their wonderful beta-reading and support.

_Hollywood, California_

_Hollywood Precinct, Los Angeles Police Department_

_June 17th, 1953_

_11:18 am_

 

Temmin Wexley—a burly, affable fellow who has tried, for years, to get his clients to call him ‘Snap’—is the first face that Ben Solo sees when he finally sobers up enough to realize someone’s posted his bail. Hazing in and out of consciousness, laying on something that feels different from the slab of concrete which passes for a bed in the drunk tank, Ben Solo wonders if he, perhaps, shouldn’t have opened that second bottle of bourbon. Or gotten into his car. The world is moving. Not just spinning, not like usual—and he hates himself, hates that there’s a _usual_ , now, but… it is what it is. He’s moving. He’s in a car. Not his, obviously. His doesn’t smell faintly of bay rum cologne and Cuban cigars, that’s for sure.

 _Ah,_ he thinks, blinking the memories back into being, merging them with the sight of the car’s headliner, the familiar smell, the movement. _Snap._

It’s somewhere after noon, on a Wednesday, and it’s only by the grace of God that Snap’s been able to prevent the photos from last night’s ill-advised stupidity from leaking to the bloodthirsty press. Ben knows it the way everyone knows it: Solo is trouble. They’re all just waiting for him to finally break.

“And you gave them the perfect opportunity, didn’t you?”

From the back seat of his agent’s car, Ben Solo groans something in reply. He’s horizontal, stretched across the width of the pristine, cherry-red Skylark’s cream leather seat. It isn’t helping.

“If you toss your cookies back there, I’m calling your mother.”

“Fuck you,” Ben slurs. But, the threat is valid. Snap would do it.

At this, his agent mutters something Ben can't hear. 

Ben groans, and pushes his oddly-cold hand to his overheated forehead. “What the fuck happened?”

“ _You_ happened,” Snap says, taking a corner a little more sharply than either of them really need.

Ben lets out another curse as he slides across the seat, head connecting with the door.

“Ben, we need to talk about your career.”

“Can it wait?”

“Nope.”

Snap takes another turn—a right, this time, and Ben braces his already-bent legs against the door as he slides. All of the moving around is doing nothing for his bourbon-soaked stomach. If his head wasn’t throbbing before, it definitely is now.

“You’ve got an image problem,” Snap says. “You need to change direction.”

“You need to learn how to fucking drive,” Ben says back. “And how to mind your own fucking business.”

“See, here’s the thing, though,” Snap replies, in that calm, almost cheerful voice which Ben knows all too well is a sign that the vein in his agent’s forehead is throbbing. “You _are_ my business. Your career is literally my business. You wanna be a fucking actor? Or do you want to pickle your insides, wreck all of your very nice cars, and get dropped from the next Tarkin flick and replaced with Armitage Hux?”

Ben groans; it’s unclear, even to himself in the moment, which one of those things disgusts him more. The mere mention of alcohol makes his body want to revolt—cream leather seats, he thinks, and swallows the urge back down—and the thought of his rival, the whey-faced Brit with the milquetoast face and backstabbing compulsions, taking his place… well, that wasn’t going to happen.

“Wait… did I crash my car?”

“I'm taking you home, Ben,” Snap says. “Or whatever it is that passes for home, for you.”

“The… Aldera,” he says, suddenly realizing how hoarse and raw his voice his, how sour his mouth and—he smells. Like cigarettes and sweat and burnt tires. Ben winces. “I have a…”

“Yeah, I know about your fucking penthouse suite, Ben.” Snap pulls up to a stop sign, and turns to look back over his shoulder at the six-foot-something man who’s somehow folded himself into the car’s back seat. “Everybody knows about that. You want me to take you there? Shoulda left you in the joint…”

“Yes,” Ben manages.

He closes his eyes again. Not in the mood to fight.

Today was a mistake. Yesterday was, too. In fact, as far back as he can remember, his whole life has been a mistake. The car rolls to life again, gains speed.

“You’ve got an image problem, Ben.” Snap says it again, like it’s something Ben can fix right now, still half-drunk and sliding around the back seat of a Buick. Like it’s something he ought to have a solution for…

“And I’ve got just the ticket to solve it.”

* * *

Ben slinks past the reception desk at the Aldera hotel, heading for the private penthouse elevators without so much as a glance at the staff; they know him by now, and know to leave well enough alone when it comes to their grumpiest, most cantankerous long-term resident—especially when he smells of drink, wearing what’s clearly last night’s suit. And any of the patrons who might be checking in, well, maybe they recognize him, and maybe they don’t. He doesn’t give a shit. Hopes they’re distracted, instead, by the gold and the glitter, the marble floors and the chandeliers.

When he gets up to the suite, he pulls off his sweat- and smoke- and vomit-soaked clothes, tossing them on the floor and resolving to have them burned later, and heads into the bathroom for a shower.

It’s a blessing in disguise, really. Because the minute he gets inside, the minute the water hits the back of his neck, Ben’s stomach finally ejects the contents of last night’s carousing. But, it does feel better once he’s through and washing his face and rinsing his mouth with the water falling from the shower head.

Now, though, his stomach is empty. When he gets out of the shower, he dries himself lazily with two towels and leaves them on the tiled floor. Ben wraps a third, dry one around his waist, and goes to the courtesy phone, to order some room service. If there’s anything remarkable about how much he orders and eats, the staff know not to comment on it; Ben orders bacon and eggs and ham and toast and juice and coffee, even though it’s two-something in the afternoon by now. Edging on three. They assure him that his food will be ready as quickly as possible, and he knows they mean it.

When a call comes up to his room not five minutes later, however, Ben’s prepared to unjustly unload all of his frustrations on whichever staffer is gonna tell him they’re out of whatever his sour, empty stomach is craving—but it’s Snap.

“You’ve got a meeting tomorrow,” he says. “With me. My office, ten am, sharp—you think you can make that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ben grumbles, scratching at his overlong, damp hair. “What about?”

“It’s not a request, hotshot,” Snap says. And then, he hangs up.

When the hotel staff wheels up his room service cart eight minutes later, Ben is in an even worse mood than before. But it’s not directed at them. Wearing one of the hotel’s robes, he opens the door and lets the bellhop roll it in and set it up.

Ben hands him a tip, for his trouble.

The bellhop doffs his little pillbox cap to him, and shuffles out of the room.

And Ben sits down, and he eats.

* * *

“You’re setting me up… with a _girlfriend_?”

Snap's office is a mishmash of clutter and memorabilia. Movie posters hang on the walls, photographs of him shaking hands with a variety of famous people. There's a coat rack in the corner, gold, crowned with a dusty felt Homburg and draped with a tweedy-tan jacket. There are heavy glass ashtrays on the desk, holding down stacks of paper, and most of them need to be cleaned and the ashes dumped. The whole place is dusted with a faint tinge of tobacco smoke and the smell of Snap's favored cologne. But for all its messiness and apparent disorganization, Snap is one of the best in the business. He'd been there, when Ben had gotten out from under his old agent's thumb. Despite his respect and gratitude, Ben certainly tests the man, challenges him, makes his life a living hell every so often. And Ben's never had occasion to doubt his agent's judgement, but... there's a first time for everything. 

Across the desk, lit by the stripes of bright Los Angeles sunlight, coming in through the blinds behind him, Snap sighs and leans forward a little in his creaky leather rolling chair. “It’s Rey Jackson, you know her, right?”

Ben shakes his head. “No.”

“You two are booked on the same flick, the Tarkin spy flick, the one that starts shooting at the end of August.” Snap just ploughs on, like he hasn’t heard Ben’s reply at all.

Ben remembers the movie in question, but the name doesn’t ring any bells. “I don’t think she was cast yet, last I heard. Her name’s not familiar.”

“Ah, let’s see here…”

Snap frowns, and looks down at the papers strewn across his desk. To anyone else, it looks like a mess, but Snap declares to any and all who will listen that he’s got a system. He pats down the piles, and finally extricates a slim folder, rifling through until he finds what he’s looking for.

“Here she is. Newcomer, this is her first picture.” Snap holds the 8-by-10 glossy out to Ben, who takes it like it’s a used handkerchief. “Pretty. Young. Just signed on with us. So we keep it all in-house. She’s got the bright-eyed, fresh-faced thing, and you… well, you’re you. So you need all the help you can get.”

Ben, leveling a look at his agent from atop the actress’ headshot, chooses not to dignify that with an answer. Instead, he looks down, and considers.

She’s pretty, he thinks. Innocent—but that’ll change sure enough. Even the fresh-faced ones get made over in this business. And the most innocent ones usually end up having to take mysterious nine-month breaks for their health at some point, too. Ben doesn’t think he’s been responsible for any of those, but… it could’ve happened. If it had, he hasn’t heard of it.

The photo doesn’t reveal the color of her eyes, but they seem intriguing, maybe hazel or green, and her skin is flawless, her hair curled back from her face in an elegant style that makes her look a little older than her likely-young years. She isn’t smiling wide, or showing her teeth; instead, it’s a secret sort of a smile.

This girl, Ben thinks, she’s got it. Whatever it is, that mix of sweet and sultry. Come-hither and touch-me-not.

“I thought this was an answer that actually had to do with my career,” Ben says, still considering the girl in the photo.

“You’re an actor, right?” Snap says. “You can—”

“And what’s she playing, in the Tarkin picture? What was it called again?”

“Hmm,” Snap says, again shuffling papers with a scowl. “Ah, here. _The Blazing Fire._ She’s playing… ‘Daisy Golden, the daughter of the evil financier, who gets caught up in Agent Dark’s dark deeds…’”

Ben rolls his eyes. “So you’re pairing me off with Saint Daisy of the Golden Halo, and you think that’s gonna fix my image, how, exactly? Where’d you find her, anyway, Nebraska, behind a hay bale? Shucking corn? No wait, she’s a pageant girl...”

“England, actually,” Snap says. “London.”

“So you think that me and Lady Shakespeare here are gonna, what, have the love story of the century?” Ben scoffs. “Not likely. If anything, her being associated with me is gonna do more to drag her down than bring me up.”

“That, my friend, is entirely a matter of perspective,” Snap replies with a grin.

* * *

Ben doesn’t think about the girl for the rest of the month—not intentionally, anyway. He thinks about how absurd it is, having to finally bow to the demands of the studio. How long has he been playing this Hollywood game? Since he was ten years old, by proper count, but this side of it, when he’s actually been in control of his career, more than just the kid that got shoehorned into roles because of who his parents and grandparents were… he’s thirty-one now, and his big star-making film had come at twenty-two. Only nine years, but it feels like a lifetime.

There’s a bit of downtime, though, between the end of filming and the beginning of his next project. So Ben buys himself a new car, and goes for a drive.

Sober, this time.

When he comes back, he’s informed by Snap (via a dozen increasingly threatening and exasperated messages, left at reception) that he better not forget the invitation to the Moden Canady retirement gala. There’s a selection of tuxedos that’ve been brought up to Ben’s room, through which Ben peruses idly as he sips from his cut-glass tumbler of brandy. The dress code is white-tie tonight; unsurprising, as Canady always did stand on formality and convention. The tailcoats are all black, of course, cut to his measurements as most of his clothing must be, given the size and breadth of him, but the minute differences in tailoring and style are left up to him. Ben finally settles on a double-breasted waistcoat in a white crepe to top his white cotton-silk smooth-front pique shirt. He pulls on the shirt and the trim-fit tuxedo trousers, tucking and arranging until everything is tidy and smooth.

The requisite white tie goes on next; Ben ties it without really having to glance at his reflection, given that he’s been tidying up for these sorts of things since he was supposed to be in middle school. Into the cuffs of the shirt he slips a pair of pearl and white gold cufflinks. Then, the jacket. Tails always do make him feel like he’s a deflated peacock, and he doesn’t have to look at himself in the mirror at all to know that he doesn’t quite have the body of a slim, lean, more fashionable man, but it will do.

They don’t pay him to be slim, and lean, and fashionable.

They pay him because—and when he’d heard this, from Snap, he’d laughed out loud, thinking it a joke—’guys wouldn’t take you in a fight, but the girls like a bit of that rough tough-guy act. They like the danger, and that's what you are.’

Danger.

Ben eyes himself in the mirror, forces himself to appraise his reflection, and snorts softly in derision. Ben doesn’t play good guys. That’s not how he’s typecast, not how they want to see him. He doesn’t play clear-cut villains, either. He plays the men who are between the shadows and the light. The morally-conflicted ones, the ones with the self-serving code of ethics, who will do the right thing in a pinch.

He isn’t dangerous. Not really.

Not to anyone but himself.

* * *

In the limo, on the way there, he remembers: The Girl.

Rey… something. He’s forgotten. He hasn’t forgotten her eyes, though. She’s a nobody, and probably wouldn’t have warranted an invite so early on in her career, but if he knows Snap, she’ll probably be here tonight.

So, he’ll finally get to find out just what color those eyes are.

Ben waits in the queue of cars, seeing the flashbulbs go off a little more brightly as it rolls closer and closer to the red carpet. It’s like having to sit and wait for an oncoming storm, and, strangely, Ben feels antsy at this thought. Normally he tunes it all out, has been doing so for years, but tonight…

Finally, it’s his turn.

The car stops, and one of the uniformed men waiting out front moves to open the door to let Ben out. He has learned how to look down a little at first, so the lights don’t blind him. Then he’s stepping out, and then the door is shutting behind him.

Ben gives a little wave, and some of the assembled, waiting throng of people gives a mostly-feminine cheer.

A bit of danger, he thinks. Well, then. Let them look their fill. His new, upcoming picture, _The Blazing Fire,_ has just been announced. Surely that’s what all this buzz is about, and not him.

His resting face is more of a scowl than a smile, and he can’t just turn it on, like some of them in his line of work can—ironic, for an actor, and he knows it, but… there it is. Nothing really shocks him about this business anymore, Ben thinks, his eyes adjusting as he scans the people ahead of him. White tie and tails, and glittery, sweeping, impractical gowns for the ladies. No, nothing shocks him. This could be any event—

The flashbulbs suddenly going off are his first clue that something has shifted. Then, moments later, before he can turn and see what the commotion is about, he feels a slim, woman’s arm, slipped through the crook of his elbow. Ben’s first, instinctual reaction, is to flinch away, but he controls it. Instead, he looks down at which woman has come up and decided to become friendly with him for the cameras.

And hazel-green eyes meet his.

Her.

The girl he’s heard so much about.

She’s even more stunning in person. Her slim, tall frame has been poured into an evening gown that’s silver-white, beaded jacquard. Its high neck is deceptively modest, a tantalizing contrast to the deep plunge of the back. And it hugs her body like… like…

“What are you doing?” Ben says, bending down to murmur the words, firmly but not unkindly, in her ear.

“My _job_ ,” is her murmured reply.

Flashbulbs make his eyes water. When he straightens up, she’s smiling as if he’s just complimented her, not questioned her.

She looks demure, shy but coy. Sooty lashes and a sweep of pigment across the lid, and her mouth, the kind of red that promises the taste of sweetness, summer berries, picked on a warm day, giving him sticky hands that he’d wash in the lake—

“Shall we head on in?” is all she—Rey—says.

Ben nods. For all that he’s the experienced one, and she’s the newcomer, Ben is, suddenly and inexplicably, thrown for a loop. But he leads her into the gala, and he just knows that people are already whispering about this new development. The girl’s forward behavior, his murmured reply to her.

 _Snap, you sly dog,_ Ben thinks.

The show’s already begun.

* * *

The gala goes well, but Ben can’t concentrate on it at all. The only things he seems to be able to pick up are fragments of the evening, like someone’s dropped a mirror and he’s staring down at his own reflection, cut into a thousand tiny pieces.

The girl, on his arm. Five-seven, he’d guess, but she’s wearing heels, which makes her look practically statuesque. And yet… the slope of her arm, the delicacy to her wrists, her fine-boned hands—what is he doing, staring down at a girl’s hands?

She’s got to be ten years younger than him, but that’s not exactly a problem in the eyes of the watchful press, even now unearthing the answers they crave: _Who is she? The girl, the one in silver, on Ben Solo’s arm tonight? I heard she was from Paris… I heard she was from back east—_

Ben scoffs. He can practically hear them now. Bunch of sharks, scenting their next meal.

Snap, for all of his… personality quirks, knows the business.

He had been there to help transition Ben Solo from his Little Benny epithet, away from the childhood roles and into the upper echelons of Hollywood. This is all part of his plan to launch Rey, too—a drop of golden sun, and yet he’d put her in silver.

Rey’s smile, to her credit, doesn’t falter the whole way in. If she expects introductions, Ben doesn’t know and doesn’t care; she won’t get them until Ben figures out just how, exactly, they’re going to make this whole fake romance thing seem believable.

If she’s awestruck at all by the glitz and glam, she doesn’t show it. With nerves of steel she strides beside him into the gala, not even allowing her head to turn so she can stare at the other big names, both on-screen and off, that are here tonight.

She’s new, but she’s not awestruck.

Ben admits he has a grudging respect for that.

But she’s a mystery to him as well. He wants to peel the mask off of her, the makeup, the gown, all of it. He wants to see her smile an honest smile—honesty, in this town? More of a fable than Cinderella—or at the very least, he wants to see some other genuine emotion.

When he leads her over to the table marked ‘Mr. Solo and Guest,’ he holds out her chair for her and she settles into the velvet seat demurely.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asks her.

And she looks up. “Um, I—”

Her eyes are… there’s something accusatory in her gaze, something he doesn’t understand, something that he doesn’t like—not because of what she’s doing at all, just because of the way she makes him feel.

“I’ll just pick something for you then, your majesty.”

The words slip out before he can stop them. He sees the hurt flash across her eyes, and then—ah, there it is, anger. The first honest emotion he’s seen from her. This makes him smile, but he doesn’t know why. Something about how easily wound up she is makes him feel… powerful. More in-control.

He stalks off, before he can ruin the moment with an apology.

* * *

When he comes back, he pushes one of the two drinks he’s obtained into her hands, and she looks up at him through those smudged lashes and gives him the coldest ‘thank you’ that he’s ever heard in his life. Ben sits down.

Then, almost immediately, stands back up. Someone’s approached to shake his hand and shmooze, and so it begins; this is the part of the evening when he has to attempt to give a shit. He does his best. If they can see right through him, they don’t say anything.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your lovely guest, Solo?” Armitage Hux says, his clear green eyes gazing down at Rey like he already has the measure of her.

“Oh,” Ben says, and turns, helping Rey to her feet; she places one of her small hands in his larger paw, and Ben watches as she smiles at him.

She should be smiling at me like that, is his first, fierce and instinctual response.

“I’m Rey Jackson,” she says, her accent as crisp as autumn leaves. “Pleasure to meet you. Ben has told me so many things about you.”

It’s a lie, but Armitage—well, he is who he is. A fawning peacock of a man, easily distracted by flattery. He eats it up with a spoon, taking Rey’s hand in his and pressing a dry kiss to the back of her knuckles.

“A pleasure indeed,” Armitage responds. “Especially pleasurable to hear a fellow countryman in the colonies. What brings you out west, Miss Jackson?”

“Oh, you know,” she says, with a gentle, easy laugh. “I got a job offer.”

Armitage smiles at this, utterly charmed; Ben resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Ben says, an answer to a question that neither one of them had asked.

He doesn’t wait for her reply, or acknowledgement. He just goes.

* * *

Ben Solo is adept at finding the semi-hidden exits for workers, servers, and staff, slipping out unnoticed and dodging looks and questions. Granted, it had been much easier when he’d been smaller—and maybe even back then, the waitstaff at events like these had just known not to bother him, known who he was, even then… but it’s a nice illusion, all the same.

There are aspects of this job he loves. Self-expression. Creativity. Being able to really get into the head of another person, a fictional person, and exorcise so many types of man that Ben could never, truly, be.

But there are so many aspects he hates, too.

The lies and deceptions. The falsehoods. The intrusion.

The assumptions.

Oh—he thinks—and _her._

Rey Jackson appears around the back server’s entrance just a few paces behind him; he can hear her heels clicking on the linoleum floor. He doesn’t stop, or turn around, or shorten his stride to allow her to meet up with him. He just fumbles for his pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket, and dumps one out into his hands.

“Solo!” she calls out, over the noise and the din of the waitstaff and the distant clank of the kitchen, in high gear for an event of this caliber. “Wait!”

“Sorry, can’t hear you, very busy,” he says, and pushes the double doors open, into the bracingly cold night air.

Rey follows.

Finally, when he’s leaning against the brick wall, knowing full well it’s scratching up the back of his tails and probably rendering it unwearable, Rey rounds on him, a menace in silver glitter and elegance.

“What the hell was that?”

Her foul mouth and direct approach stuns him, very nearly amuses him; Ben pauses, hand hovering somewhere between his jacket pocket and his trousers, in his search for his lighter.

“The hell was what?”

“We were supposed to be a couple tonight,” she says. “And you couldn’t even play along, before running off and leaving me with—”

“With your fellow countryman,” Ben dismisses. “You were fine.”

Fine, so long as she can deal with Mr. Hux, that is. Judging by the state of her now, Ben has no doubts that she can. 

“And you’re unbelievable.” Rey sighs, patting at her artfully-arranged curls as she stands there in a way that suggests she's a little unfamiliar with the style. “Mr. Wexley told me that you were meant to escort me in, but your car arrived after mine, and I had to stand there and wait like an absolute idiot.”

“Snap.”

“Excuse me?”

Ben finds his lighter, flicks it on. “Nobody calls him Mr. Wexley; call him Snap.”

She narrows her eyes at him, trying to discern if he’s having a go at her or not.

“Your agent—our agent—told me what I was meant to do tonight,” Rey pushes forward, and steps in a little closer to Ben, even as he brings the lighter up to the cigarette currently placed between his lips. “Didn’t you get the memo?”

“Whatever he told you, he didn’t tell me,” Ben says cooly, and lights the cigarette, taking a few slow, steady drags from it, the ember glowing between them as he flicks the lighter off. “Maybe that would make things easier, being on the same page and all, sweetheart.”

Her eyes narrow even further. Ben feels, oddly, surveyed, and he doesn’t like it. Appraised, and found wanting. Women don’t look at him like this. They looked at him like… like he was dark and brooding and dangerous. Or like he was something that might eat them up, all in one bite—the embodiment of all the fantasies that their husbands, brothers, fathers and boyfriends all collectively wanted to believe they didn’t have. Even now, even under her glare, there’s a certain visceral part of him that wants to just… be like one of his characters. Do all the things the censors can only hint at. Rip that dress a little, tug it off her shoulder and bare her collarbone. The thing practically dips down to her waist in back, but up in front, it’s as modest as a schoolgirl’s blouse.

Ben straightens up, resisting the pull of her hypnotic gaze. He’s got to get control of the situation—and himself.

“There’s a dozen girls out there just like you who’d kill to be where you are.”

“Oh?” she says, glancing around the alleyway. “Really? Right here?”

“You know what I mean,” Ben snaps back, the cigarette smoldering in his hand. “Setup as my girlfriend, in a picture with me—”

“You really do think highly of yourself.”

“I don’t have to, I know it’s the truth.”

She laughs at this—actually laughs—and folds her arms across her chest loosely; it’s not defensive or withering at all, it’s like she’s squaring herself off for a challenge.

“Go on, then, tell me why I’m so lucky to be roped into _this_ with _you.”_

“Let me guess,” he says, bringing the cigarette back up to his lips, taking a drag of it, his eyes sweeping up and down her body like a metal detector, searching for lost rings at the beach. “You’re here because it was always your dream. When you were a little girl, you looked at those glossy magazines and told yourself one day, you’d—“

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” Rey snaps back, folding her arms across her chest. “You don’t know me at all. So don’t make a starry-eyed story of me, Solo.”

Ben Solo’s mouth curls into a smile. “Is that so? What, you’re gonna tell me your story is something new and different? Because I look at you, I see ingenue, big eyes, big dreams, big—well, they’re not that big—“

“You’re a bloody wanker,” Rey growls at him. “I’ve got half a mind to sock you in the nose.”

“Only half a mind?” Ben scoffs, holding his cigarette up to his mouth again. “That’s more than most of you dames have.”

“It’s not like I’d even need aim, what with how big it is,” Rey seethes, ploughing across him as if he hasn’t spoken at all. “As big as your bloody ego.”

“That’s not all the things that are big, sweetheart.” Ben grins. “But I like you. I’ve changed my mind. It’s going to be the acting challenge of my career, pretending to be head-over-heels in love with you.”

“I hate you,” Rey bares her teeth at him.  And without another word, she turns on her heel, stomping off with more force than a slim woman in a glittery silver gown ought, by rights, to possess.

Ben takes another slow, even drag from his cigarette. The night around him is dark, the noise from the party inside muffled—the band, the laughter, the talking. When he closes his eyes, he expects to see only darkness, but instead, he sees the flash of silver.

* * *

Filming starts in August, which is somehow only a few days away, when Ben surfaces from his next bender. Thankfully, he doesn’t crash his car, this time. But he does wake in his own bed—well, in the hotel’s bed, anyway—and find that he’s thrown all of his liquor bottles at the wall.

He pays out handsome tips to the staff who come up to clean up after him, feeling a pang of embarrassment and regret that’s unfamiliar and ill-fitting, like a bad suit. He has to stop doing this. And, apparently, his drunk self agrees.

Ben finds the script to _The Blazing Fire_ , once the place is clean and once they’ve brought up room service—chicken cordon bleu, scalloped potatoes, green beans—and some sparkling water, an unusual request compared to his usual libations, but one they seem all too optimistic to deliver.

Script in hand, freshly-showered, Ben sits down to read, and to eat.

It shouldn’t be too strange that he hasn’t actually read the script till now. He’s under contract with the studio, five pictures, three of which are in the Agent Dark franchise, and he knows what to do at this point with the surly agent character.

 _Agent Adam Dark,_ he reads in the synopsis at the front: _Early thirties. Handsome. Dark, brooding, dangerous—but compassionate when it matters. A man of his own interests, a vigilante and a spy. Reformed, now, from his work with the mob, but a free agent._

Ben snorts, softly, in derision. Astonishing, really, that the studios have the gall to describe anyone, even a fictional someone, as a free agent. He keeps reading, though, and gets to Rey’s part.

 _Daisy Golden. Early twenties_ —she couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, Ben thinks to himself, recalling the freshness of her face and the openness of her expression— _Pampered mob princess, daughter of the infamous mob boss Mr. Golden. Innocent, but wise beyond her years._

His mom had a term for this kind of role, Ben thinks. _Wise beyond her ears,_ that’s what she’d call it. A nymphette who existed solely to be either seduced or rescued, or possibly both, by characters like his. His mother had played her fair share of those kind of roles, back in her day. Back before her swift and unceremonious exile from the business. Ben shifts in his tufted leather chair.

He doesn’t want to think about his mother.

He reads on.

What unfolds is a fairly standard spy flick, one not too dissimilar from the films which had come before in the same franchise. It was a formula that sold tickets, so it was a formula that they clearly wouldn’t hesitate to play again and again, changing variables and locations like a dealer changing out decks and dice. Ben’s character, the mysterious Agent Dark, had been contacted by a figure who concealed his identity, and wished to investigate the dealings of Mr. Golden, notorious mob boss. Agent Dark had taken the case, and spent months gaining trust with Mr. Golden’s organization out of Boston, working his way up the ranks and proving his worth through his experience with shadowy underworld dealings—none of which could be depicted with any real vigor due to the film codes. That was the trick with depictions of violence and criminal activity: People had gotten it into their heads that showing it happen, without some swift and decisive punishment of the criminal characters in question, would somehow lead America’s youth into an inescapable pit of crime. So Agent Dark frequently _pretended_ to do a variety of criminal things, while the real crooks got to have all the fun—and then their characters got killed off for it, by the police or passing trains or whatever.

Adam Dark was a no-good, very bad man, but… they had to keep the franchise going, so he wasn’t _that_ bad. Never truly evil.

Ah, here it was—the moment his character first sees Rey’s character. Ben flips the pages he’s already scanned through around and curls them, holding the script in his left hand as he reaches for a drink of the water. Forgetting, just for a moment, that he’d asked for soda water instead of what he’d usually be drinking, he frowns. But he drinks it.

 He reads.

INT. THE GOLDEN CLUB

_A collection of rough-looking mafioso types sit in clusters of two and three around little round tables, drinking and smoking, listening to a motley group of musicians at the front—piano, out of tune; a guitar player; an upright bass. They talk and laugh and, occasionally, they get rowdy, but the blows never come to much. All in all, it’s a bunch of disorganized degenerates._

_Agent Dark sits at the bigger of the tables, up closer to the makeshift stage. He’s next to Mr. Golden, and a few other higher-ups. Finally, he’s ingratiated himself into the trusted upper ranks._

 

AGENT DARK

You keep talkin’ about this business, but nobody’ll give me a clear answer as to what it is you need me to go and do for ya.

 

MR. GOLDEN

This one’s eager.

_(he laughs, slaps Agent Dark on the shoulder.)_

I like that. A real go-getter. Don’t you worry, we’ll put you to work soon enough. But tonight, we relax.

 

_The others cheer and drink to that, and someone passes Agent Dark a glass and fills it._

 

MR. GOLDEN

Drink! Drink! To your health—you’re a big, strapping lad, though. We won’t need much assurance of that.

 

AGENT DARK

Any assurance is good assurance.

 

MR. GOLDEN

That is true, that is true. I’m not sure any of my boys can spell the word ‘assurance,’ though. You’re a tough-guy, but you’ve got a brain. I’ll have to watch out for you, won’t I?

 

AGENT DARK

_(wryly)_

Only if you’re worried I’ll drink all of your supply.

 

_He knocks back the whole drink, and the other men laugh. From the side, we see her: Daisy Golden. Dressed in white, an innocent among the mess and ruin of the underworld in which she’s been raised. She looks around the room, and her eyes catch on Agent Dark’s right away. She doesn’t know him, but there’s something about him that makes her look twice._

_Her father sees her come in the room as well._

MR. GOLDEN

Ah, there she is! My little flower-girl. My Daisy!

_(cupping his hands around his mouth, calling to her like a dog)_

DAISY! Daisy! Here, girl.

 

_Agent Dark bristles at his treatment of her, but doesn’t say anything._

_Daisy makes her way through the crowd. There are no hands that grope her—nobody would dare attempt it, in front of her father—but the eyes might as well do the trick._

_It’s only when she reaches the front table, stands not too close to her father, that one hand does reach out and tug her in: Her father’s. Agent Dark notices this, and he notices the way she tries to hide her disdain. But she can’t—or won’t—pull away. Not from her father._

 

MR. GOLDEN

So you see here, this is my treasure.

 

_He says it with a laugh, patting her flank like she’s a car or a piece of furniture._

 

MR. GOLDEN

My little girl. Not so little anymore, eh? And she looks like her mother—thank goodness for that!

 

_The men around them don’t know whether to laugh at this or what. But Mr. Golden barks out a huge, self-effacing laugh._

 

MR. GOLDEN

What were you up to, hiding back there? You’ve not grown shy on me, have you?

 

DAISY GOLDEN

_(shaking her head)_

No, Papa. I was just…

 

_Her voice trails off as her gaze connects once more with Agent Dark. She’s perceptive, more so than she lets on. Mostly concealing it out of pure survival. For something so pure to have grown in the sludge of this underworld, that requires guts. Her father, however, doesn’t notice._

 

MR. GOLDEN

Were you going to sing for us tonight, Daisy?

 

DAISY GOLDEN

_(shaking her head, mortified)_

No, I—

 

MR. GOLDEN

Sing! Daisy, if I want to hear that lovely voice, now, you can’t tell your own father no, can you?

 

_He all but leers at her, and she knows that she can’t say no to this request. None of them can. She may be the pampered princess, but the tower she lives in has golden chains._

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Alright, I’ll… just one song, then.

 

MR. GOLDEN

_(yelling at the band)_

Will you morons shut up and play something nice for my girl?

 

_The band hastily complies. There’s a sense that Mr. Golden’s mood can be pleasant and boisterous one moment, but deadly the next; none of them want to get on his bad side._

_They strike up a tune. Slowly, with her father’s urging, Daisy heads up onto the low stage. The lights dim a little, except on her. She looks down, fearful of the crowd._

 

DAISY GOLDEN

_(singing)_

“I’ve got the moon in my eyes tonight.

I’ve got the lying moon in my eyes tonight

She shines across the sky

But I know she’s just a lie

A quieter reflection of the sun…”

 

“I’ve got your words in my heart tonight.

I’ve got those lying words inside my heart tonight

You told me you’d be true

But I can’t trust in you

Another girl’s beside you, in your arms…”

 

_She has a lovely, rich voice—a smoky contralto. Agent Dark is captivated by her, the mixture of innocence and beguiling charm. But he quickly takes command of his response, careful not to display anything close to attraction for Mr. Golden’s daughter._

 

MR. GOLDEN

_(nudging Agent Dark with his elbow)_

She sings a treat, don’t she?

 

AGENT DARK

She does have a gift, yes.

 

MR. GOLDEN

You know, the last man who tried to touch my daughter… he ended up at the bottom of the bay. Most of him, anyway. Parts of him ended up elsewhere.

 

AGENT DARK

_(composed)_

Is that so?

 

MR. GOLDEN

Yeah. I mailed his hands to his mother. And other parts of him to his wife.

 

AGENT DARK

And how’d they take that?

 

MR. GOLDEN

_(smiling)_

About as well as you’d expect. I don’t take kindly to men touching things that don’t belong to them.

 

AGENT DARK

And she belongs to you.

 

_It’s not a question, but it’s also not entirely a statement. A subtle challenge, perhaps. Agent Dark knows he’s toeing the line… Up on stage, Daisy still sings, the piano playing beneath her words._

 

DAISY GOLDEN

“And all the promises you said,

And all the dreams you gave have fled,

The moment you crossed the river wide…

 

“I’ve got your words in my heart tonight.

I’ve got those lying words inside my heart tonight

You told me you’d be true

But I can’t trust in you

Another girl’s beside you, in your arms…”

 

MR. GOLDEN

_(laughing)_

Yes. That she is. But, enough of this. Let’s talk business, since you were so eager to get to it.

 

AGENT DARK

_(turning away from the stage)_

Yes, let’s talk...

 

Ben puts the script down in his lap, marking the page. He can almost picture the scene in his mind, the girl in the white dress, an innocent flower, and a cretin who couldn’t decide if she were his daughter or his dead wife… He thumbs ahead to the end, where Mr. Golden gets gunned down by agents from the FBI, and feels a strange sort of satisfaction about it. Maybe there’s something to be said for the Hays code after all.

_...a lovely, rich voice—a smoky contralto…_

Ben ponders this description. The girl—Rey—she must know how to sing, or else they would dub her for the picture. But he had a sense that she probably does. How had she come to land this part? It wasn’t exactly a challenging part—none of the ones in these Agent Dark flicks were, really—but she definitely had the potential to turn it into a star-making vehicle.

And it is at that moment when it dawns on Ben: This whole fake-matchmaking thing? It isn’t entirely to his benefit. Snap hadn’t found some big-eyed, big-breasted beauty-pageant blonde from Kenosha to hang on his arm just to make Ben look better. This… whatever this was… it was going to give her clout, too. If she played her cards right.

He has no reason, no motives, to oppose her. And when he thinks back to his behavior at the gala, he’s a little ashamed of how he had acted. He’d assumed, and he’d been wrong. So far off the mark.

Doesn’t mean he had to actually like her, though. But by God, he can start acting like it.

Ben gets up from the chair, and goes to the phone. He rings down to the front desk, and has them patch him through to Snap’s desk number. When his agent picks up, Ben clears his throat, humbles himself a bit, and asks what he really should’ve asked from the start.

“So. What do you need me to do with the girl?”

* * *

The first day of filming rolls around, and Ben, having familiarized himself with the script and the call sheet, shows up early for his first day’s call. If anyone’s surprised by this behavior, they don’t show it. Nor do they comment on the fact that—if any of them notice—he’s sober, too. Hasn’t touched a drop of anything stronger than soda water with lime since the day he read the script. There isn’t really a point to it, other than… he just wants to. To prove that he can, maybe.

Rey is there as well, waiting in the makeup chair. Waiting for him, he amends—incorrectly.

“Morning,” he says.

“Morning.” Rey doesn’t move—someone’s working on adding kohl to her eyes, and she’s wearing a thin white cotton robe over her outfit for today—but her gaze does meet his in the mirror’s reflection.

“You ready for today?” he asks, careful to keep his voice neutral, almost fond, in front of all of the crew. He knows full well that they’re discreet, but they’re also always listening; gossip rags get their intel from somewhere.

“Yes,” she replies.

“Well… that’s good.”

With nothing more to say, he stalks back to the chair that’s been reserved with his name on it. Let them think what they want. He has his orders from Snap, and now that he knows his role, he’ll play it to the very best of his abilities. They shoot out of order—does she know that? Ben wonders. It is her first real picture. She probably does know that. Because why else would she be here, on day one, when her character doesn’t show up until a few scenes in…

He’s an idiot.

She doesn’t need his coddling.

Ben sinks into the chair. Responds to the pleasantries of the makeup artist, and lets her do her work. He’ll do this first, then wardrobe. He closes his eyes, and gets ready to shoot the upcoming scene.

Turns out, she really does have a lovely voice.

* * *

“You did good today,” Ben says, when he’s back in his street clothes, waiting for her outside of her trailer.

Rey looks down at him, surprised. She looks around, then, at the rest of the crew that’s moving lights, rolling carts of props or set or racks of costumes to take to the shop.

“How long have you been waiting there?” she asks, keenly perceptive.

Ben smiles at her, closed-mouth and secretive. “Not too long.”

Rey steps down, the heel of her shoes clicking on the metal steps that lead down from her trailer. For a brief moment, she’s taller than him, then eye-level, then back to her regular height. She smoothes down the front of her dress, a simple-cut one with a demure neckline, little cap sleeves, and a palm-frond print over eggshell-cream. It’s got a palm-green ribbon belt cinching in the waist, and she… she looks very pretty in it, he thinks. Her hair’s been brushed back into a ponytail, and her face has been scrubbed and cleaned of the heavier stage-makeup, fresh, lighter cosmetics applied. Ben offers her his arm again, in full view of the crew—who aren’t watching, but they aren’t _not_ watching, either.

This is how it starts.

Rey takes it.

He walks her over to the car that’s waiting for her.

 _Respect her, Ben._ Snap’s voice resonates in his mind. _Don’t compromise her. Don’t insult her. She’s going to be a star—the studio’s put their money on her, as untried as she is, they believe in her—and you’ll both benefit from this._

“Thank you,” Rey says, as demure as her dress’ neckline, as he walks her through the backlot. Ben’s never been attached to an actress like her before; that’ll be a change for the gossip rags.

And Snap wants him to look… smitten. That’s a new look for him, a… redemption arc, like the one his Agent Dark gets. Oh, the irony. Life imitates art, imitates life. And everyone’s just imitating. This little wisp of a girl doesn’t really have the power to change him.

But when they round the corner, the paparazzi are already waiting at the gate.

Skywalker Studios—named for his grandfather, a story that he’s not planning on telling Rey, assuming she hasn’t already heard it—has one crucial architectural annoyance that makes things like this especially frustrating, and Ben sorely wishes they’d address it. The gate has a boxwood hedge that’s been sculpted into what ought to be a solid barrier, but they always find their way into the foliage, waiting.

As soon as he comes into view—as soon as they both do—the flashbulbs pop like champagne in a glass.

Ben scowls, and, instinctively, turns to angle his body in front of her’s.

“What are you—?”

“Damned vultures,” Ben practically growls.

“Hey! Rey! Is it true you slept your way into the Tarkin picture?” one of them calls out.

“Did you have to sleep with Tarkin to get the role?” another echoes. “Rey, this way! This way!”

“Are you sleeping with Solo now?” a third one cat-calls. “Long climb to the top with that one!”

Ben looks down, catching sight of her shocked and genuinely revolted face. He wants to laugh—the thought of Tarkin sleeping with anything that isn’t a pile of money and his favorite cravat is genuinely laughable—but her distress makes him angry instead.

“Don’t look at them,” he says, in a private undertone that’s just for her ears. “Look at me.”

She does. Her gaze is still filled with fire. “How _dare_ they—”

“Don’t even let them get under your skin.”

She nods.

He continues on, escorting her into her waiting car. He’s got half a mind to get in beside her—but what a field day they’d have if _that_ happened—and the other half of his mind is fixed on the idea of punching all of them right in their yowling mugs. Instead, he just holds the door for her, and Rey slips into the back seat.

“I didn’t,” she says.

“What?”

“Sleep my way into the picture.”

“I didn’t think you—”

“Because I want you to know that.”

He nods. “I believe you.”

She looks at him. Slowly, it dawns on him that—she needs to shut the car door, if she wants to leave. So Ben steps back, and allows her.

He watches the car go, and then when it clears the gauntlet, and the gate, he goes back inside.

* * *

Snap calls him later that evening.

“It’s working great,” he says. “They’re loving this stuff.”

Ben’s frown deepens. Barefoot, clad in only his slacks and a white undershirt, he curls his toes into the plush carpeting. With her level of natural poise and confidence, he’d almost forgotten she was new at this. And Ben, he’d never felt like much of an innocent at all, not even when he ought to have been.

Knowing that her distress had been genuine, watching at what had been that first moment where she’d… lost her innocence, maybe. Seen the ugliness behind the glitz and glam. It’s not a good feeling. It certainly doesn’t make him feel as ebullient as Snap sounds.

“The pics of you two walking out to her car—the way you lingered there, sharing a moment—”

“Is that good enough for you, then?” Ben bites back. “Are we playing the part nicely?”

“Yeah,” Snap says, a bit taken aback. “Yeah, you two are. Keep it up.”

“Alright,” Ben says, forcing the strange coil of emotion back down. “Is that it?”

“There’s the premiere, of course,” Snap reminds him. Ben rubs his face with his hand. Right. “ _The Angel of Moscow,_ that’s coming up this—no, next weekend.”

“I’ll be there.”

“No, we’ll send a car to pick you both up, this time,” Snap says. “Her, first. Make it easier. You know how long they keep you waiting, getting their hair and… everything… all done up.”

Ben rolls his eyes. He has no idea if Snap—who is, by his last recollection, on his second, or perhaps third wife—has gained any actual insight into what women actually do. “Fine.”

“Great.”

Ben hangs up the phone—whether it’s hanging up on Snap or just the end of the conversation, he doesn’t particularly care.

What is this feeling, this odd dissonance he feels in his body? Ben doesn’t quite have a word for it. This had been one of the reasons why the world of acting had been such a draw for him in the first place, he thinks—not when he’d been Little Benny, because he’d had no choice in that, but… after. There’s something comfortable about having a script in your hands, pre-written words to help you say the things you couldn’t always say. Or easily express.

It’s not guilt, he knows that for sure. Ben meanders away from the phone and out towards the main living room of the lavish suite. He passes by the sidebar, and gazes over there reflexively before remembering he’d destroyed all the liquor, or consumed it. He could ring for more, but… he doesn’t want to.

No, it’s not guilt. Even though there’s no way to prepare for that accusation—a very specific type of accusation that, to his knowledge, men don’t really ever have to face—Rey had to have known what this business was like, before stepping into it. Maybe, maybe not.

Ben stares out across the glittering city, turning the emotion over in his mind. He finally decides that it’s protectiveness. But—that’s absurd. Rey doesn’t need that, doesn’t want that, and he’s wise enough to keep his thoughts to himself.

* * *

Filming resumes on Monday, and when he looks at the call sheet, Ben feels a dip of sadness that Rey isn’t listed for the week. Of course she’s not; it’s all Agent Dark’s first-act scenes, and Ben files away that unwanted emotion for some other time, when he’s acting and has to draw from life, although that doesn’t tend to happen often. There’s no reason to really miss her, because they aren’t really dating.

Ben shows up, he does the scenes, he works and he goes home. He relents on his tenuous promise to himself, and asks the concierge to restock the bar in his room, but when he goes to pour himself a drink on the Wednesday night after his scenes, it sits, sour and wrong, in his gut.

He misses her.

He shouldn’t miss her.

But he wants to know—is she still thinking about what those jerks said? Does it bother her? Or is he just the sentimental one, ruminating on it endlessly?

It’s probably the latter.

Ben leaves the glass on the sideboard and does his calisthenics instead, pushing himself to expel those thoughts as he moves his body through the familiar, punishing pace.

He wonders what he’ll ask her, when he sees her next.

He wonders if he’s just a contract to her.

And he wonders what it will be like, when he sees her next time, at the premiere.

The brandy goes untouched. Ben falls asleep, and doesn’t dream at all.

* * *

The car comes around to pick him up from the Aldera hotel, and Ben walks out, waving once, curtly, at either side of the paparazzi who lie in wait for him. Here, at least, they are respectful, and keep their distance. They do not shout at him, other than his name.

He doesn’t favor them with any additional attention, eager to slide into the back of the towncar and get this premiere over with. _The Angel of Moscow_ —a sweeping, historical epic, shot by one of the few female directors in the business, Amilyn Holdo—has been years in the making. He’d actually been offered a role in it, but had to turn it down due to conflicts with his previously-contracted work, a fact that has always stuck in his craw. The script had been good. The story, driving and compelling and visceral, in a way that so few things were. Ben had longed to break away from the reheated Agent Dark films and try something truly challenging, but this one had slipped through his fingers. Now, he’s only attending the premiere. But, a few of the leads are professional friends of his—friends, not chummy pals or… anything like bosom-friends. Just… people, some of the few, rare people in this business that Ben doesn’t outright loathe. So he sets aside his regret and focuses on being supportive, if only with his presence.

So focused, that he completely forgets Rey is going to be attending with him.

“Oof—get _off!”_

A hell-cat in sapphire blue shoves at him as he collides with her on the towncar’s back seat.

Ben looks up at her, startled and affronted—and maybe a bit scared that some fan or would-be admirer had found her way into the back seat of his car.

But no. It’s just Rey. And for all her fury, she looks—

“You clean up nice,” Ben says, sliding back away from her to his own side of the bench.

“Thank you,” she says. “I think. I’m not sure that was a compliment.”

Ben looks back at her. “It is. You look very nice tonight.”

Rey tilts her gaze back down at her dress, mollified. It’s a radiant blue color, sheer layers of airy silk over a bodice that fits on her body like—

Ben stops staring.

“Thank you,” she says, a little more honestly this time. “Snap suggested I wear blue tonight. Now I know why.”

“Hmm?” Ben says, looking up and meeting her gaze—then looking down at the vest of his own tuxedo. The same sapphire blue. “Oh.”

Rey watches this, somehow picking up a whole conversation’s worth of intel from just one glance and two syllables. “Well, that answers one of my questions, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had wondered if you had made the request,” Rey says. “But now that I know you’re just as clueless as I thought you were, I feel oddly calmer.”

Ben smiles.

Rey smiles, too. And her shoulders relax a little further.

The car merges into traffic, and then they’re off.

“Does this ever get easier?” Rey asks him, after long moments of silence stretch out between them, across the back seat.

“What?”

“The… the fear. The nerves, I mean,” Rey says, and then turns to fix her sharp, keen-eyed gaze on his face. “Unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t get rattled by things like this?”

“I—” he has to think for a moment, how to answer the question honestly, and without offense. “I do, I suppose. I just… don’t think about it.”

“How can you _not_ think about it?” Rey asks him, cupping her right hand across the lower part of her left biceps, rubbing a little just above her elbow. “I like the acting part of this, believe me. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. And I feel so lucky to be here. But the public spectacle—I don’t think that will ever get easy.”

“If you’re lucky, you’ll have many years to try and test that theory,” Ben says, and the words come out gentle, for once. “You certainly have a chance at it.”

Rey’s eyes look very soft when he meets her gaze.

“That’s… very nice of you to say.”

“I—” Ben nods. “I think it’s true. People will love you.”

Rey holds his gaze, then looks away. “Well. First I have to finish filming.”

“And get through this,” he adds, gesturing between the two of them. “And honestly, I’m not sure which of us has the worse deal.”

Her eyes narrow at this, and Ben realizes, yet again, he’s put his foot in it. The car has stopped, though, and the crowds outside are waiting for them.

“Showtime,” he says, wryly.

Rey’s glare melts back into her serene, gentle expression, and she nods, and lets go of her arm. She straightens her shoulders, and then the door is open, and the lights, once again, are flashing.

* * *

_The Angel of Moscow_ is an excellent film. Ben sits there in the seat at the fine, showy cinema, watching as the drama unfolds before his eyes—and beside him, as well. Because Rey is… engrossed. He loves film, has always loved film, but… having grown up in this world, sitting next to her as she drinks in every ounce of the cinematography, the lavish scenes, the evocative dialogue—it feels like he’s seeing a film for the very first time, seeing it through her eyes.

When the main character takes a savage beating, crumpling to the ground as his love watches in horror, Rey grips the arm of the seat in her hands.

When the train pulls away from the station, and the strings swell as the heroine fights back tears, tries to be strong, Rey elicits a soft little noise of sadness—Ben is enthralled.

And when the hero makes the last-minute, self-sacrificial decision, Ben can’t even focus on the fact that he’s pretty sure he met one of the guys playing a Russian officer at the Canady benefit, in line for drinks. He watches Rey. Like she’s the work of art, unfolding before his eyes.

After, Rey looks at him for just a moment, before the house lights come up, and he sees a faint, glisten of wetness under her lashes. Without another thought—before anyone can catch him—he takes the handkerchief out of his own pocket, and offers it to her. Rey dabs at her eyes, and swiftly crumples it into a ball as the lights come on around them.

When she stands, he stands beside her; she tucks the handkerchief into her little clutch, and the smile on her face covers over any honest emotion she might’ve felt.

But Ben doesn’t forget that moment.

* * *

They return to filming.

Ben tries not to think about that night, and that emotion, and the way she’d seen the film.

He tries not to think about how nobody’s ever looked at him like that—or how patently ridiculous it is that he’d want that at all in the first place. From her, no less.

He says something thoughtless, careless, and then they’re back to their old contentious dynamic. He tries to play it off like… he’s tired, but—she knows.

It’s like she can see right through him.

The next day after his outburst—tantrum, in her words—Rey returns his handkerchief, washed and pressed and folded, placing it into his hands without another word. Ben rubs his thumb over the monogram on it, remembering.

His mother had given him these. He’s not sentimental; she could’ve kept it, he thinks.

Filming goes on. Life goes on.

* * *

_The aftermath of the shootout. Daisy Golden has taken cover behind a knocked-over table. The FBI have rushed in, and taken Mr. Golden into custody. Agent Dark, left shot behind a bar, crawls out when the coast is clear. He makes a beeline right for Daisy, over the fallen bodies of the other men, caught in the crossfire. He finds her, rouses her gently, but urgently. Allows himself one moment to look upon her while she is unconscious._

 

AGENT DARK

Daisy… wake up.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

_(drowsily)_

Is it over? Oh!

 

AGENT DARK

Yes, it’s over. But I’m afraid your father’s Christmas list is significantly reduced.

_(a beat)_

And he’ll have a much harder time, wrapping those presents where he is.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

_(sitting up, in shock)_

Oh! Papa, where—where did they take him?

 

_She reaches for Agent Dark, her little hands tugging at his shirt, eyes pleading with him._

 

DAISY GOLDEN

You’ve got to help me get him back.

 

AGENT DARK

No, I don’t.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

What do you mean?

 

AGENT DARK

I’m not who you think I am, Daisy.

 

_Daisy pauses, her eyes searching his face. Her hands soften where they’re curled into his shirt._

 

DAISY GOLDEN

You frighten me, when you talk like that. Who else would you be?

 

AGENT DARK

I’m a spy, Daisy.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

But—you didn’t leave with the officers.

 

AGENT DARK

I work for myself, I’m my own man.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

And you were sent to investigate my father?

 

AGENT DARK

Yes.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

By whom?

 

AGENT DARK

Someone who isn’t likely to pay me, now that I’m leaving empty-handed.

 

_Both of them seem to realize the double meaning in those words. Daisy’s hands, currently full of his black shirt, and the agent’s hands, helping her sit up amongst the rubble. Agent Dark lets go—but Daisy holds fast._

 

DAISY GOLDEN

You’re not leaving empty-handed. I’m hiring you, now.

 

AGENT DARK

Is that so?

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Yes. How much money do you want?

 

AGENT DARK

Daisy—

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Whatever your owner is paying you, I’ll double it.

 

AGENT DARK

Money’s not what I want from you.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Then—what can I give you?

 

_The camera pulls in closer to their faces, Daisy’s luminous, alluring yet innocent eyes. The moment, charged with tension and understanding. Expectation. Daisy tugs on Agent Dark’s shirt once more, as if to bring him close, but instead, he winces in pain._

 

DAISY GOLDEN

What is it? What’s wrong?

 

AGENT DARK

It’s nothing. Good thing I’ve got a clean shirt in the car.

 

_Daisy tugs aside the torn shirt to see the bullet hole. She gasps, frozen for a moment, then is spurred to action. From her pocket she withdraws a white handkerchief, embroidered with daisies. She pushes it over the wound, and Agent Dark winces, just a little._

 

DAISY GOLDEN

You’re hurt!

 

AGENT DARK

Yes. But it’s nothing.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

You need to go to a doctor!

 

AGENT DARK

I seem to recall we were in the middle of a business negotiation.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Don’t talk like that, now. What kind of a man are you?

 

AGENT DARK

A man who’s been shot before, and will likely be shot again—especially if I go to work for you.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Can you walk? We’ve got to get you out of here.

 

AGENT DARK

_(not unkindly)_

Why do you care?

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Despite what you think about my father, whoever you really are, he taught me compassion.

 

AGENT DARK

_(wryly)_

Did he, really.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Yes. And you’re one of God’s creatures, too, aren’t you?

 

AGENT DARK

That’s not what they say about me.

 

_She pushes a little too hard against him, the handkerchief slowly filling with blood._

 

Your loyalty to your father is remarkable.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

Is it? I thought that was what we were commanded to do. Honor thy father and mother—

 

AGENT DARK

Your loyalty to a man who, by all accounts, threw you away like garbage. That’s what I mean.

 

DAISY GOLDEN

How dare you—

 

AGENT DARK

But you can’t stop needing him. Defending him. Do you know what he is?

 

DAISY GOLDEN

A man like you wouldn’t understand a thing like loyalty.

 

AGENT DARK

I suppose you’re right. After all, just moments ago you were promising to hire me.

 

“CUT!”

The director’s yell booms out across the soundstage, snapping Ben out of the moment entirely. Tarkin has a way of calling for cuts in the worst possible moments—at least, from Ben’s perspective, anyway. He’s crouched on the floor of the set, holding Rey and reluctantly letting go of her when the makeup folks pick their way across the glass-strewn set to powder both their noses. Rey’s handkerchief-holding hand drops, and she tilts her head up to allow them easier access as they paint back on the red of her lips and the kohl of her eyes. Thankfully, Ben has no such additions to be made.

One of the assistants swaps her bloody handkerchief out for a clean one, and a second one, a technician, speedily squirts on a new glop of fake blood through the rend in his shirt. It’s cold on his skin, already sliding down from the location of the imaginary bullet wound, high on his left chest, near the shoulder.

“We’ll take it from ‘You’re one of God’s creatures,’ alright?” the director yells from his canvas chair. “Places, please. Quiet.”

The makeup and various crew members depart whence they had come, and Ben is left there alone with her—alone, under the glare of lights and the glint of broken candy-glass, splintered wood, and dummy bodies. He leans forward, left hand coming around behind her waist, right resting at his side, mentally shifting back to the line in question.

Rey, out of character, won’t meet his eyes. They both know what’s coming.

"Am I your first on-screen kiss?” Ben says, in a low undertone, just for her ears. “I'm honored."

"Don't be,” she replies primly. “I had garlic bread for lunch."

Ben smiles, despite himself—and when Tarkin calls for action, he has to hastily rearrange his face.

“And you’re one of God’s creatures, too, aren’t you?” Rey says, shifting into character like an olympic diver piercing easily into calm and pristine waters.

Ben holds her a little tighter, and her hand goes up, pressing the handkerchief to his shoulder.

“That’s not what they say about me.”

Her eyes flick down, to the embroidered handkerchief in her right hand, the way the fake blood oozes out through the fine linen weave. A charged moment passes between them. Ben suddenly realizes he has a line.

“Your loyalty to your father is remarkable.”

“Is it?” Rey replies. “I thought that was what we were commanded to do. Honor thy father and mother—”

“Your loyalty to a man who, by all accounts, threw you away like garbage,” Ben says. “That’s what I mean.”

The flash of hurt in her eyes at that line—it was real, Ben thinks. Something about it—there was a flash of real hurt, real truth in that line.

“How _dare_ you—”

“But you can’t stop needing him,” Ben pushes past her boundaries, past any worries he might have had, if this had been a normal conversation. If he had known what it was that had been the cause of that pain. “Defending him. Do you know what he is?”

“A man like you wouldn’t understand a thing like loyalty.”

“I suppose you’re right. After all, just moments ago you were promising to... hire me.”

Ben waits for Tarkin to call cut at that innuendo, knowing full well that he’d changed the implications of the scene. But he didn’t. The cameras are still rolling. And Rey’s hand has flattened itself against the handkerchief, against the blood. Against his body.

And Rey looks up at him, her little tongue darting out to wet her plush, red lips. “The offer still stands, Agent Dark.”

“I think I’m ready to take payment now,” he says, and leans in for the kiss.

There are kisses, and then there are kisses.

This one is a kiss for screen—flat-mouthed, no tongue, relatively chaste. The Hays Code is always watching, Ben thinks, somewhere, distantly, in the back of his mind. But oh, how she responds to him. This, too, has a hint of truth to it, as her rage had felt, as her bitterness. Ben longs to gather her up into his arms, kiss her like he wants to, see if she makes any soft noises or tiny gasps. He wants—

“CUT!” Tarkin yells.

Ben rolls his eyes, and pulls back. He looks away, reaching for the proffered towel from a nearby assistant to wipe her lipstick off of his face.

“It’s a good color on you, Ben,” Rey teases. But there’s a jitter of nerves in her voice.

He wipes again, and then growls at the nearby makeup artist, who hastily sprays something from a clear glass bottle onto her own clean towel, dabbing at his face.

“Can we get coverage from over his shoulder?” Tarkin says. “We’ll need to reset, and go again.”

Ben gets powdered again, and Rey’s lips get adjusted, sprayed with something that’s probably a fixative. They get back into position, and this time, she does meet his eyes.

 _This isn’t normally how I kiss women,_ Ben wants to say—but that would be a lie. His dating life outside of women who are paid to embrace him is surprisingly scant. He hasn’t had a woman in his arms, or in his bed, for… months, now. Maybe that’s what’s making him odd and sentimental.

He wants to ask if she’s alright. But—this is part of her job, too. And even if he is objectionable, well, it’s not like she has the power here to walk off.

“Reset!” someone calls.

Ben adjusts her in his arms.

He goes again.

(In the end, he thinks, after twelve takes, it’s a good thing he likes garlic bread.)

* * *

Over the course of the next few weeks, filming proceeds mostly as he expects. Rey’s part isn’t terribly large, and there’s a complicated set piece involving a shootout at a warehouse, followed by tracking one of the bad guys—an FBI fellow who, as it turned out, had been working for Mr. Golden all along—through a snowy forest, and Ben doesn’t have much to do with her on a day-in, day-out basis. One last touching goodbye, when Daisy leaves to go seek out a more virtuous life, in the arms of the kind-hearted, upstanding cop who earns her affections, and her work is done.

Agent Dark may be the kind of guy who the women want, but he isn’t the kind of man who gets the girl, not the sweet, innocent one, at the end of the day.

Outside of filming, however, the press, predictably, goes wild.

Partially, it’s based on her allure, and he knows that. She’s new and fresh and untested by the rigors of the Hollywood press machine, and they want to chew her up in the gnashing grind of speculation. But some of it’s about him—he’s not a known playboy type. All of his lovers have, in the past, been very discreet. And this isn’t the type of girl he goes for. Everyone’s scratching their head about it, making predictions, insinuations, grandiose claims.

At least some of the gossip is influenced by Snap, as Ben expects. And other than attending public functions together, and occasionally be seen leaving the set together—not getting into the same car, of course, but just… proximity, near the gates—people infer what they want to infer.

By mid-September, the world is enraptured by their forbidden romance.

Ben reads this, one morning, on set, as he eats some eggs and toast for breakfast.

 _A SOLO DUET!_ One of the headlines proclaims. Another reads: _JACKSON FLYING SOLO?_

He snorts a soft, mirthless laugh; his name always has been a source of easy headlines.

A small, hesitant knock sounds at the door to his private trailer. “Come in?”

The trailer door opens, and Ben turns, expecting one of the crew or—anyone but her.

Rey peers up at him. She’s in-costume already, wearing a pair of men’s trousers, belted around her slim waist, and a rough, too-big men’s shirt that’s been rolled up at the sleeves to expose her arms. But she hasn’t been to makeup yet, so she’s fresh-faced, her freckles showing through beneath the dusting of powder she typically favors.

Not that he’s aware of what kind of makeup she favors. It’s just, he notices.

“What is it?”

“Can I speak to you?” Rey asks, still hesitating at the foot of the steps. “Privately?”

Ben, with his heightened awareness of the way things like this could be perceived—how swiftly people would notice if she came into his trailer and shut the door. Even if she didn’t shut the door, people would talk. If there was one thing he could count on, more steadfast than the California sunshine or the unreachable high bar of his mother’s expectations, it was that. Gossip.

“Yes,” he says, “But not here.”

Rey nods, but worries her bottom lip.

“Meet me at the… the lunch room. Find a table. I’ll be there in… ten minutes.”

Rey nods again. Then she turns, and leaves.

Ben wonders what it is for the next ten minutes. When the time is up, the moment the minute hand moves to the proper place, he folds his newspaper, and sets it down on the table. He goes to find her.

One of the sacred things about the backlot is this: It’s really one of the few places where people like Ben can walk around, undisturbed and treated like a relatively normal person. Which is really absurd, given that he’s walking from the back side of a half-constructed set that looks like it’s being made for a Western, over to one of the sound stages that can be set up for a pool of water. Outside of that one, a dozen girls with blonde hair and matching aquamarine rhinestone bathing suits cluster around like groups of scattered flowers in a concrete field, waiting for their call. One or two of them glances up when he goes by, but… there are no names, no shouting. No hollering.

No photographers.

Ben eventually finds Rey back where she said they’d meet—at one of the lunch tables, in the back of a nondescript long, narrow room, filled with tables. He bypasses the lunch counter, waves hello at the nice woman, Marge, up front, who keeps the coffee hot and the conversations private. Rey, sitting in the very back, has a cup of coffee, but she isn’t drinking from it.

When he comes over to her, she looks up at him.

“I didn’t check how soon we were needed, back on set,” Rey admits.

“We’ve got twenty,” Ben says. “What’s wrong?”

Rey sighs, and trails a finger along the curve of her otherwise-untouched coffee mug. “I… was wondering if it’s not too forward of me to ask for some career advice.”

This… isn’t what he expected.

And frankly, now that he hears it, he wants to chastise himself for any of his own wayward thoughts. He smirks slightly, pulls out the chair opposite her, and sits down.

“Go for it.”

Rey looks up at him. “You really don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Ben says. “But… why all the secrecy? Seemed like you had something rather clandestine planned for me in my trailer.”

Rey makes a face at him, and Ben’s smile widens just a bit. “Very funny.”

It is funny, Ben thinks. He likes that she can make fun of him for it, too. Banter, like a… well, like someone who isn’t actually afraid he’s about to put the moves on her.

“So you don’t want to ask Snap this, I gather?”

“I have asked him,” Rey says. “And I’ve listened to what he has to say, and I still can’t make a choice. So, here we are.”

Ben gestures to the room around them. “Here we are.”

Rey gives him another look, one he can’t entirely decipher. “Alright. I’ve received two offers—two films. And I—”

“Just the two?”

“More than two, thank you very much,” Rey says, a little self-satisfied, and justifiably so; Ben smiles. “But two that both seem like amazing opportunities. And I can’t film them both.”

“Alright,” Ben says. “That happens, sometimes. What are the projects?”

“One’s a… musical picture.” Rey says this one and makes a bit of a face.

“You’ve got a very nice voice,” Ben says—he doesn’t need to flatter her, not really, just tell her the truth. “What’s the face for?”

Rey smiles at this, caught. “It’s about five sisters… and I’d have to do an American accent, which I can do—”

“You can?”

She fixes him with an appraising stare, meeting his challenge, laying her fidgety hands flat on the speckled linoleum top of the table.

“Why yes, Mr. Solo,” Rey says, in a flawless, perfect, California accent. “I _can_ do an American accent. Can you do an English one?”

“Yes,” he says, feeling like the smile on his face is going to become a permanent fixture there. “I can.”

He says this with no affected accent whatsoever, purely to needle her.

It works.

“Anyway,” Rey says, switching back, “The musical. Five sisters. It would be shot here, and—and the other one, that one’s a bit darker.”

“Darker?” Ben can’t help himself; he puts his elbows on the counter and leans forward, chin resting lightly on his fist.

“A murderess,” Rey says. “In a crumbling, English castle. Emphasis on the English—actually, I believe it’s looking to film in Scotland. And don’t tell the Scots they’re English, they don’t particularly agree with or appreciate that.”

“So you want to know whether to to be a singing American or a murderous Englishwoman?”

Rey nods. “Precisely… Well—”

“Are you even going to drink that coffee, or are you just going to let it get cold?”

Without another word, Rey slides to mug over to him. Ben murmurs his thanks, and picks it up, downing half of it—surprisingly still warm—in one gulp.

When he sets the mug down, Rey’s eyes flick down to his hands, holding the mug, then back to his face, then out the window.

“I need to know what you want, from this,” Rey says, quietly. “From… us. This… relationship.”

“Ah,” Ben says. “Snap told you to stay stateside, then.”

“No, actually. He thinks the overseas picture is the better career move. But… it feels like going backwards, to me. I left England for a reason.”

“Let me guess,” Ben smirks, playful. “The coffee was terrible there as well.”

Rey rolls her eyes. But then she looks back over at him, face serious. “You know I’m… new to this world. You know that you and I…”

“I know what they say, yeah.” Ben leans back in his chair, realizing that her eyes are still fixed on his, expectant. “But I can’t make that decision for you. What picture to choose, I mean. All I can say is… your instinct, when it comes to your career, won’t often lead you astray.”

“But it can?”

“Sure it can.”

“In what way?” Rey presses.

Ben takes another swig of the coffee, and ponders this. He knows what she’s asking, what she’s really asking: How do I avoid screwing up, and doing it in the public eye? There’s no answer to that at all.

“What picture do you want to do?” Ben asks, when he puts the mug down.

“I’ve made a list—” Rey starts, but she halts herself abruptly as Ben shakes his head. “What?”

“What gets you, in your gut?” he asks. “When you hear it, do you think: That’s it, that’s the one?”

“The… the American one,” Rey says, slowly. “But it frightens me. I know without a doubt I can go do the other one. But this one, it’s a challenge.”

“So what does your gut say?”

“It says… stay, and… and do the thing that frightens you.”

Ben picks the mug back up, and gives her a little ‘there you go’ gesture, before swirling the last swallow in the bottom of it. “If you are lucky enough to have the luxury of two great projects to choose from—or three, or four, I have no doubt you have the right number—then pick the one that gets you there, in your gut. Other than that… I can’t say.”

“So it’s instinct,” Rey says. “Like everything else, I suppose.”

“Instinct, when you can,” Ben says, with a wry smirk. “And lie, when you can’t.”

 _Like us,_ he thinks. _Like this._

“We should probably get back to set,” Rey says.

So they do.

* * *

Filming on _The Blazing Fire_ wraps in mid-October, after 55 days of production. Ben has one final scene with Rey, a reshoot of an earlier one, a scene that the director wasn’t thrilled with, how the lighting had been done. So he finds himself crouched behind a stack of crates, showing Rey, again, how to use a pistol—showing Daisy, that is. Sweet Daisy Golden, the innocent who saves Agent Dark’s life…

At the end, when they’ve wrapped for good, Ben and Rey stand up and the crew cheers for them, and there’s champagne, and he tries to slink away, out of the noise of it, but Rey clasps his hand and drags him out for one more drink together, perched on a crate, wearing her tweed trousers and dirty, rolled-up shirt.

“You look like a debauched urchin,” he says, when the two of them find their way back to her trailer, her arm linked in his, his free hand holding the champagne bottle.

There’s crew all around them, even though it’s past ten at night; whatever is thought about their supposed relationship, Ben doesn’t care to worry about. It’s been weeks since he’s had anything at all to drink, and Rey seems determined to match him drink for drink.

“You’re a dirty old man,” Rey counters, snatching the bottle from him, her steps a little unsteady.

“Hey,” he says, indignant, pulling it out of her reach, much to her protestations: “I’m not _that_ old.”

“And I’m not that debauched,” she replies.

They’ve fallen into a little alcove formed of darkness, a space between the trailers, suddenly shadowed, alone.

 _It’s a good thing we’re only pretending to be a couple,_ Ben Solo thinks, prudently, thoughtfully, soberly—well, maybe not that last one so much. How much has he had? Only enough for a soft, pleasant buzz, is all. The champagne makes him feel all fizzy, not like the sour leaden weight of the bourbon.

Or maybe it’s just the nearness to her.

No, it’s a very good thing they’re only pretending.

“You’re… not,” Ben repeats, as Rey takes the champagne from him, tilts it back, and finishes what little is left from the bottle. “Debauched?”

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and lowers the bottle, shaking her head.

“Nope.”

Ben is momentarily fascinated by the way her mouth forms a round shape, the way she pops the P on ‘nope.’

He smiles.

Then she smiles.

Then they’re both laughing, madly, about nothing whatsoever.

“You should get… changed,” he says, and when did she get so close to him? Rey has taken a step up towards her trailer, leveling her height very nearly with his. Beyond their little sphere of darkness, there’s a clatter of a cart going by, some prop or set being moved, and the bubble of laughter and chatter from some crew member.

Rey is looking at his mouth.

“Get changed, Rey,” Ben says, more firmly, the realization of her state, as opposed to his, dawning on him like a dousing of cold water. “I’ll… see you ‘round.”

“Alright,” she says, and nods.

Her hand goes to the door.

Ben hesitates, then: “You did good. On the picture, you… you did good.”

“Thank you.” It’s the most demure he’s seen her look when nobody else is around. Ben has the sudden and absurd idea of just… peeling back all those layers. The costume, the makeup, the performance, the vision of the girl she can be. He wants to see the truth of her. Whatever that is. Messy or glorious, he’s positive he’d like it.

But she… she wouldn’t want the same of him, that he knows for sure. This business, it can mess with a person’s head. Make them think that bad ideas were good ones. Make them want to risk bringing some of that on-screen chemistry back off-screen.

A mess, is what that is.

And it really does make him feel like… like a dirty old man. He can’t be nine years her senior yet, but she’s got such a freshness to her, a vibrancy in contrast to his world-weariness.

Ben clears his throat. “Good night,” is all he can say.

He doesn’t let her answer him. And if she opens her mouth to say something to his retreating back, in the darkness between their trailers, Ben doesn’t see it.

* * *

Post-production on a film takes anywhere from six months to a year, but this is one of the ones that can get done on the quicker side of things. The rumor mill continues to churn, mostly fueled by the fact that Rey’s jumped right into her next project, and is still filming there at the same studios, and Ben, who is between films, comes to visit the studio a few times a week to visit her. He doesn’t need to be there—and the excuse he gives, when asked, is that he’s working—but Snap tells him it’s so that he can be sure to get photographed, coming and going.

“They’ve gotta have some blanks to fill in, Ben,” Snap says.

Ben obeys. Even though he knows that at least one of the things the press assume he’s filling in is between Rey’s legs.

Everything’s very suggested, never confirmed—but people absolutely eat it up.

Isn’t it romantic, one of the magazines says, how he’s always there for her, to help her fledgling career along?

Isn’t it controlling, another one says, how he’s there to keep her under his thumb?

Thankfully, Snap informs him that more people are saying the former than the latter.

“I’m not helping her with her career,” Ben says, and it’s mostly true, in the most literal sense of the words; he isn’t giving her acting advice, because she clearly doesn’t need it, and she hasn’t asked for any more wisdom about how to choose a project. When they sit and have coffee—he drinks his, she just holds the mug in her perpetually cold hands—they talk about everything but the business. It’s oddly nice.

* * *

The premiere date for _The Blazing Fire_ is set for 25th of April, 1954. Ben, who’s taken a role in a gritty western, has started brushing up on his horsemanship in preparation for the role as a lawless gunman-for-hire. It’s late March, and he’s up at Ackbar Ranch, riding a solid-looking gelding named Maximus around in a circle. So far, this fake thing they’re doing has been relegated to taking her as a possibly-professional, possibly-not date to official events.

Now, as Rey waits for him on the outside of the paddock, wearing a pair of dungarees and a red and white check blouse, both of which seem to cut close to her body in a way her oversized costume definitely didn’t, Ben eases Maximus on over to where she is, walking the massive black horse slowly so as not to kick up too much dust.

“You have a nice seat on that thing,” she says.

Ben rolls his eyes. “You didn’t drive all this way just to compliment my horseback riding. What is it?”

Rey rolls her eyes—what a matched pair they make—and pushes her curled bangs off of her sweat-sticky forehead; it’s warm for spring, and there’s not a cloud in the sky overhead. “Snap’s been trying to get ahold of you. He thought you’d be at home.”

“Don’t have a home, Snap knows that.”

Rey folds her arms on top of the paddock’s top rail. “Oh, poor you. Poor little rich boy, living out of a hotel.”

At this, Ben laughs. She’s the only one who can tease him like this, and that thought startles him.

“So he sent you,” Ben says, reaching down to pat the side of Maximus’ neck. “So deliver your message.”

“We’re going on vacation.”

“What?”

Maximus, the traitor, noses at Rey’s palm as she coos softly to him. Ben wrestles with, and eventually is successful at subduing the fierce desire to have her gentle him like that—a ridiculous notion, one he’d never confess.

“Apparently, we’re formally announcing our relationship, courtesy of a trip to the sunny shores of Acapulco.”

“What?”

“Did you go to the firing range before this?” Rey coos, to Maximus but decidedly not at Maximus, still rubbing at the horse’s sturdy neck. “You don’t seem to—”

“Why are we going on vacation?” Ben says, resisting the urge to tug on the reins and make her pay attention to him, and not the damn horse. “What’s the point of that? And you’re in the middle of filming.”

She sighs, and glances up at him. “Filming break. One of the girls broke her leg. So, production’s on halt.”

“I still don’t understand the purpose of vacation.”

“It’s a trip some people take,” Rey says, when Maximus finally decides she doesn’t have carrots or apples or lumps of sugar in her pockets, and leans down to tug out a mouthful of grass, growing at the base of the paddock’s post. “To relax them. A very foreign concept, but I can assure you—”

“Let me clarify,” Ben says, clearly exasperated, his hands tightening on the reins. “I don’t understand the purpose of _this_ vacation… Did Snap bribe you to be this… _you_?”

Rey smiles broadly at him, showing her teeth. “No. It’s just part of my winning personality. Anyway, a magazine is going along, too. So they can document our blossoming love.”

“Great,” Ben mutters. “Just great.”

“Pack your bags, cowboy!” Rey says in her perfect California accent, still grinning.

Ben does not say anything in response to this—or, if he does, it’s only when his back is turned, and he’s riding Maximus back to the barn, and he knows she won’t be able to hear him.

* * *

Despite all of his protests, Ben can’t convince Snap or the studio to let him back out of the damned trip, so he finds himself packed into a de Havilland airliner with four other actors and a photographer who is the very definition of plucky, heading for the coast of Mexico. Ben doesn’t much care for heat, and he’s never been a fan of the beach at all—the sand is coarse, irritating, and gets everywhere—and moreover he feels like a fool for the first planned shot, bare-chested and wearing plain black swimming-trunks, squinting in the sun.

The four other actors, all younger than he is, all new-ish faces to the scene, play with a beach ball and laugh and splash in the water; Ben tries to stay out of sight. He tries, also, not to stare at the swimsuit that Rey’s picked for this absurd parody of a trip: A black number, ruched in the middle over her narrow waist, curving over her pert behind, a notched vee in the neckline and delicate straps coming up to tie behind her neck. She looks like something that ought to be on the cover of French Vogue, and even her wide black and white-ribboned sun hat makes her look chic.

“Sit with me,” she says.

Ben, long legs extended on one of the blue beach towels, hiding his pale skin under a massive umbrella, grumbles his acquiescence.

“The photographer is distracted,” she says.

Ben looks up—past her, over to the group of the young actors, two young men—Finn something, and the other one, with dark hair and a smile that some article is sure to describe as _winning—_ and two young women, who look like they’re sisters. The four of them are playing some kind of improvised game with the beach ball.

But Rey… Rey is watching him.

“You must sunburn easily,” she says—and it might be an endearment, to anyone else’s ears. Anyone who didn’t know her to be… well, her.

Ben makes a noncommittal noise, and glances down at his own admittedly pasty torso. “I try to stay out of the sun.”

“Because you sunburn—”

“Yes,” he barks. And then, looking up into her eyes, he softens. “Somehow I don’t think that photographer wants a photo of me with sun-cream on my nose.”

“I don’t think they have enough sun-cream in all of Mexico to cover—”

“Oh, my nose isn’t that big.”

She smiles at him. “It’s not. I like your nose, actually.”

Ben realizes that he’s smiling, too. “Do you.”

“Mmhmm.” Rey gives him a lovestruck, soft look. “It’s… distinctive.”

From his side, Ben hears a suspicious clicking noise.

 _Ah,_ he thinks. _Well._ An act. He can do that. That’s practically all he can do.

He leans forward, crossing his legs at the ankle, giving Rey his movie-star smile. “Tell me what else you like about me.”

Rey blinks, and her eyes flick upwards, just once, to where the photographer must be looking. Ben doesn’t break character for one moment. He can almost picture the shot, now, the way the pair of them must look. Dreamy, on the sands of Mexico’s glitziest beaches. The first of many locations they’re contractually obligated to visit on this trip which is the opposite of relaxing.

“I like your big ears,” Rey says. “And you know, they do say something about men with big noses and big ears.”

“That their senses are extraordinarily well-developed, is that what they say?”

Her eyes dart down to his mouth; a lie, he’s sure of it. An act. It’s all just an act. “Something like that…”

From the shoreline, the sound of shrieking laughter draws their attention. The Tico sisters are now being hoisted onto the backs of the two young actors, set for a race across the sands.

“Excuse me,” the photographer says.

Ben doesn’t even look.

Rey does, shielding her eyes with her hand.

“Why’d you say those things,” Ben asks, before he can stop himself. “About my… my ears, and my nose.”

“Because… I thought it was true.” Rey makes a face at him—a wrinkle of her nose, a roll of her eye. “I’m not here to tell you things you already know, Solo.”

“And what things do I already know?”

“That you’re… handsome. Good-looking.”

Ben feels the flush creep along his cheeks, down his throat, out to his ears, before he even has the presence of mind to try and stop it. It’s impossible, stopping it. All he can do to halt it is jump in the ocean, which is a serious possibility at the moment, the way she’s looking at him.

“And you’re terrible at fishing for compliments,” Rey finishes, pointedly looking away from him, out towards the ocean.

Ben folds his legs up and puts his hands behind him, leaning back and turned a little further away from her; she makes no notice of his change of position.

“I wasn’t,” he says, quietly. “I really wanted to know. What you think about me.”

She turns back, gives him a quizzical look. “Why?”

Ben shrugs, trying to form his thoughts. “Because… everyone in this business is fake. We’re liars, that’s our job—to lie the best. Sometimes, it’s nice to hear the truth.”

“And you think I tell you the truth?”

He snorts softly in amusement, perspiration dripping down from beneath his hairline, down the curved column of his spine. “I think if anyone had the capacity to tell the truth in this business, it would be the upstart, English nobody who told a movie star he was a bloody wanker and threatened to punch his nose. His giant nose.”

Rey laughs, and shakes her head.

“You’re not afraid of anything,” Ben says, half in accusation, half in wonder. “By all rights, you ought to be, but—”

Rey snorts. “We’re all just people with exceptionally strange jobs.”

“That’s an awfully cynical view, for one so young.”

But as the words fall from his lips, Ben hears the older echo of his father’s words reverberate in his mind: _It’s not the years, honey; it’s the mileage._

Down on the beach, the four actors gambol and play. Kicking up water at each other, laughing.

Rey doesn’t say anything. She just looks in her straw bag, digs out her sunglasses, and puts them on. When he risks a glance over at her, the shade of them is far too tinted to know whether she’s looking at him, or down at the water, or at the others, or anywhere. He knows better—despite her flattery—to assume she’s looking at him. And for all that half the world looks at him, Ben thinks, wanting just one more person, that’s got to be the height of narcissism, isn’t it?

* * *

He gets back, and Snap has nothing but good things to say about their performance, and the trip, and the photos.

“Gonna be a big, glossy feature on you two,” he says, sounding as pleased as punch about it. “The romance of the decade, they’re calling it. I’ll have them send you a copy, hot off the press.”

“Great,” Ben says, choosing not to think about that moment on the beach, the way she’d looked at him, any of it. “Listen, I want you to look for a house.”

“A… a house?” Snap says. “For who?”

“For me,” Ben says. “I’m tired of this place. The hotel.”

“Alright,” Snap replies, and Ben hears the sound of more papers shuffling on his agent’s desk. “A house. Okay. Any preferences? You want secure, a pool, nice kitchen—?”

“Sure,” he replies, trying not to think about Rey, perched on the edge of a kitchen counter, telling him more lies about his… ears. Or Rey, wearing that elegant black swimsuit, lounging by his pool, smiling there, just for him. “Find me some options, I’ll take a look.”

He thinks about other things instead: Setting up Christmas trees and lights, drinking… cocoa, probably spiked. His mother would always spike it, anyway. And his father would always say something about it. He hasn’t thought about that memory in years. Hasn’t called his mother for at least that long. And he doesn’t remember at all what toy it was, that was wrapped under the tree. Or know why he’s thinking about Christmas in April. Or someone to share it with—Christmas, or the house.

At his request, the hotel closes the rooftop pool, and Ben swims laps up there for hours. He thinks about houses, and christmas, and whiskey, and memories—remembering the things he wishes he could forget, forgetting the things he wishes he could remember.

* * *

The day of the premiere arrives. Ben walks Rey into the picture, down the red carpet, her arm draped across his. He thinks about the magazine’s photos—the way that damned photographer had managed to capture every beautiful angle of her, the tilt of her hat, the secrecy of her smile. There’s plenty of shots of him in there, too, in his black, high-waisted trunks, his broad body in the sunlight, but Ben does not linger over those at all. He looks at Rey. Stares at her—like he’s a fan, a devoted admirer. Which, maybe he is.

She’s radiant in full color, but he almost prefers her sun-lit and shadowed in black and white.

 _I’m gone for her,_ he thinks. _Completely gone. She could undo me with a word, a glance, and I’d smile, and thank her._

He’s ridiculous.

But—the movie is good.

As excruciating as it is to watch himself in anything on the big screen, Ben doesn’t want to crawl under his seat or sneak out this time. Mostly because of her.

 _She’s going to be a star,_ he thinks.

Beside him, Rey is smiling. When the part comes on with her singing, she sits up straighter, as if… as if bracing herself for laughter, steadying herself to be mocked and taken apart.

She’s good, though. She’s radiant, up there. Like she belongs there. Crying beautifully when Agent Dark tells her that what she thinks she feels isn’t the truth.

 _“You’re a good girl, Daisy,”_ Ben hears himself say, as he turns his head to the left and watches the real thing, beside him, instead of the picture. _“You’ve got a chance at a better life, now… and you should take it. Don’t shackle yourself to someone who will only bring you down.”_

 _I’ll only bring you down,_ Ben thinks. Beside him, Rey’s eyes are wet. He loves it when she cries like this, Ben realizes. He doesn’t… he doesn’t want to see her cry, but he loves how emotive she is, how movies can still bring this out of her. It’s magical.  

 _“You said once that I was old enough to know my own mind,”_ her voice, up on the screen, replies. _“Well, if you believed that then, believe that now.”_

Rey blinks—carefully, so as not to disturb her mascara—and looks over at him. In the darkness, her hand reaches out to his, and… and Ben takes it.

He smiles at her. All this moment needs is a sweep of strings, a tremulous swell of the music as the orchestration builds.

But when her hand touches his, he feels… silence. Pure and sweet. A quietness within himself, within the cacophony of his own mind. The power she has, over him—and she doesn’t even know it. Won’t ever know it.

 _She’s just being polite,_ Ben thinks. He returns her smile, close-mouthed and appropriate.

He looks back at the screen. Daisy Golden, welcomed into the arms of the handsome police officer who helped her. And Agent Dark, walking off into the night, alone.

Credits.

Applause.

Ben smiles, or tries to. He remembers to let go of her hand, before he stands up to greet the folks who’ve been sitting behind them.

There’s a party, and drinks, and he… he doesn’t have more than the one, a glass of something he can’t taste that he nurses the whole night through. He leaves early. He goes home to a new, empty house.

To his new, empty bed.

He sleeps.

* * *

_The Blazing Fire_ is box-office magic.

That’s what Snap tells him, anyway, when he calls the next day. Ben is actually up, much to his agent’s surprise.

“They loved it!” Snap enthuses. “I’ve never seen such good—”

“Can I call you back?” Ben says, when the buzzer at the gate alerts him to the presence of a visitor. He hangs up, before Snap can even reply.

Five minutes later, Rey is standing in his house. His bare, empty, unfurnished house. She’d know what to do with it, Ben thinks, as her heels click quietly, slowly, across the hardwood floor. Her dress is ivory and gauzy today, a concession to the hot day, but Ben feels like it’s too close to white, too close to a one-sided fantasy which he can’t have.

“It’s nice,” she says.

“It’s empty,” he replies.

Rey looks at him. “Yes… but you have time to furnish it. Decorate it.”

Ben shoves his hands in the pockets of his trousers, gives her a soft laugh. “I’m not much on the latter. But, yeah, I suppose I can get a—”

“A nice mirror,” Rey says, cutting across him, even as she steps closer to him, there in the middle of his bare, empty living room. “Right over the mantlepiece. And some greenery.”

“By the windows,” Ben says, his eyes fixed on hers. “They’d… like the light.”

“Mmhmm.” She steps closer.

Ben feels that same rush of warmth he felt that day in Acapulco. Except now, he can’t blame the sunshine for it.

“Drapes, maybe,” Rey continues, with a casual glance at the wide front windows. “For privacy.”

 _Christ._ The sweep of her gaze does things to him.

“And… somewhere to sit?” he says, floundering, his brain urging him to back up, his body urging him to rush forward; he compromises, and does nothing at all.

Nothing, but watch her.

“Or lay down.” Her eyes twinkle with amusement.

_“Rey—”_

“Can we talk?” she asks him, softly, so softly, close enough to place her hand on his heart.

Beneath her touch, beneath the fine cotton of his button-up shirt, he’s trembling.

“About what?” Ben says. “Rey, I… I can’t play the game, anymore.”

Her brows draw together a little in confusion. “The game of… pretending to be together? You did say it was going to be a challenge for you. Hardest acting role of your career.”

Something is hard right now, but—

He shakes his head. “No. The game of pretending not to want you. Want this.”

There. It's out. A confession, awkwardly worded, but honest. His gaze darts down to the floor, and he knows he deserves a slap in the face for what he's admitted. Part of him almost wants it, too—one last touch, anything from her, before she leaves his house and his life forever. Maybe he'll retire after this, clear the way for her star to rise—

"Ben," she says, ever so softly. 

He looks up. She's close. Close enough that he can breathe her in. Close enough that he can see her faint, sunkissed freckles, across the bridge of her nose. Unpowdered, bared to him—the sight of her skin makes him want to sink down to his knees and beg. 

“So stop pretending,” she whispers, rising up on her toes, her mouth inches from his mouth.

 _There are no cameras here,_ Ben thinks, absurdly, as the pull makes him press his mouth to hers. He can't believe it; There’s no purpose to this, no deception, no performance.

 _There are kisses,_ he thinks, _and then there are kisses._

A moment later, when his body catches up with his mind, he groans, and picks her lithe body up with one arm, drawing her against him so he can deepen the kiss.

She’s not wearing lipstick, he realizes—she’s planned for this, hoped for it, wanted it. There’s no sticky slide against his mouth from the gloss. And it’s that thought, combined with the mint taste of her and the sweet vanilla smell of her and the long, lean line of her against him, that little detail, that intention, which makes Ben’s control shatter.

He sets her down on the floor, bare and empty and unyielding as it is; she deserves softness, but this isn’t about what he thinks she deserves any longer. This is clearly about what she wants. And luckily for him—he’s damned lucky, he’s utterly overwhelmed by his luck—what she wants is exactly what he wants, too.

“You could have a nice man,” Ben says, crawling up her body as she tugs on his shirt, wriggling beneath him. “You could find someone sweet and wholesome, like you—”

“I’m not sweet,” Rey says, breathless. “I don’t want wholesome.”

She kisses him to drive the point home, and Ben slots his body between her spread knees, the floof of her dress presenting an additional layer of obstacle between what both of them want. Ben kisses her again, and again, and again, until she’s writhing up against him, desperate for contact. He feels faintly delirious, his cock aching for entry, and her hands tug at his shirt, first at his shoulders, then in front, scrabbling at the buttons.

Pure, desperate hunger pulses in his veins. A need, long-denied.

“We—” Ben tries to get the words out, has to pull back a little, away from her kiss-reddened mouth, so he can speak without her kissing him senseless. “I don’t have… we can’t…”

Her eyes are mossy and green and accusatory when she glares up at him. “You’re telling me you—”

“Do you trust me?” he says, even as her hips buck up, the starched silk petticoat crinkling like the paper wrapper of the condom he doesn’t have.

There’s so much he doesn’t have, but for her, he’ll find it. Furniture, her mirror, her greenery. Soft things. Nice things. He’ll fill this house with everything she wants, and he’ll fill her with everything he can give—when they can, he thinks. Not now. Not yet. He wouldn’t chance it, no matter how much she tugs at him and grinds her hips against his erection. That, he cannot give her. Because it’s too risky. Years ago, when his mother had fallen into the arms of a handsome set builder, it had very nearly ruined her entire career. Ben hadn't asked to be born, but he's grateful that his life—which had begun as a loving mistake—has brought him to this moment, here, with her.

He wants her; One day, if he’s lucky, if the heavens smile and the clouds part like her legs for him, he'll give her whatever she wants. But—

“Yes,” she says, exhaling the words like incense rising to the heavens.

Ben smiles, and crawls down her body, to crouch between her legs. He flips her skirts up, pushes the last scrap of cotton to the side, and finds her there, just as sweet—even sweeter—than he’d expected.

She's a marvel. Responsive and—and he _loves_ her, he does. More than just desire. He likes her spitfire audacity, her determination, her resolve. He likes the noises she makes and the way she tugs on his hair and tells him what to do. His fingers slip inside and she arches, making a noise that sounds like the first brush of sunlight, kissing a darkened horizon. Dawn, of the first day; heaven singing a new creation. He curls his fingers a little, inside of her velvet-tight heat, learning what she loves; his mouth and tongue worship her, splitting her peach-ripe folds, teasing the center of her, lapping wetly at the edges, letting her litany of _there, more, harder, yes, don't stop_  instruct him. Again, and again—until she crests and comes, and clamps her legs around his head to keep him right where she wants him.

As if he'd ever leave. 

"Marry me," he says, when they both catch their breath, when he lays his cheek against her soft inner thigh, the taste of her still on his mouth. 

And Rey, she just laughs. "Are you asking me that because you just—"

"No," he says, rising up to look at her, finding her pleasantly flushed and grinning.

The tease. 

"Marry me," he asks again, because they're the only two words that matter right now, here in this empty room which could be filled with anything, anything at all. 

"Yes," she says. "Alright. Since you asked so nicely."

And Ben grins. 

* * *

**_SOLO AND JACKSON TO WED!_ **

_Well, it looks like the_ Blazing Fire _actors have ignited a blaze of their own! Hot on the heels of their blockbuster smash hit, it seems as if the chemistry on-screen was only a teaser of what must’ve been happening off-screen! But don’t clutch your pearls just yet: Ben Solo and Rey Jackson have announced their engagement, and all of tinseltown is talking…_


End file.
